The silence that followed wasn’t awkward—it was full. Heavy. The kind that ant more than words could say.
Then a sharp, distant noise shattered it.
Sothing tallic groaned in the distance. The sound echoed down the forest road, followed by a faint rumble.
Sasha straightened instantly. "We’ve got company."
She started the engine, headlights cutting through the dark. "Hold tight."
Alvaro blinked himself awake. "Seriously? We just got here and hadn’t rested for ten minutes."
"Yeah, well," she said, gripping the wheel, "rest ti’s over."
The car shot forward, tires crunching over gravel as they tore through the forest. Branches whipped against the windshield. The rumble behind them grew louder—sothing big, maybe a vehicle, maybe not.
"What now?" Alvaro shouted.
"Now," Sasha said, eyes sharp and alive again, "we find out if we’re faster than whatever that is."
They hit a bend, the headlights catching a glimpse of movent—a swarm of small, crawling shapes spilling from the trees.
Not monsters this ti. Drones. Dozens of them. Old governnt models repurposed by God-knows-what. They must have been deployed to fight monsters but it was attacking even humans.
"Oh, co on!" Sasha yelled. "Can’t we have five minutes of peace?"
Alvaro chuckled a little, even as he reloaded his pistol. "You’re cute when you’re angry too."
"Shut up and shoot."
He fired through the open window, each shot echoing in the narrow road. Sparks flew as bullets hit tal. The drones sward closer, their red sensors blinking like hungry eyes.
Sasha swerved hard, sending two drones crashing into a tree. Another slamd onto the roof, buzzing angrily.
Alvaro leaned out and blasted it off, bits of tal raining down.
"Still think you’re dying?" she yelled.
"Not anymore," he said, grinning. "You’re too stubborn to let ."
"Damn right," she said, gunning the engine.
After several breathless minutes, the swarm fell behind. The last of the red lights disappeared in the trees.
Sasha slowed down only when the road opened into a wide, empty field bathed in moonlight.
She parked on a small hill, engine idling, and let out a long breath. The field stretched endlessly—quiet, silver, untouched by the chaos behind them. The air was still. The stars shone brighter.
For a long mont, neither of them spoke.
Finally, Alvaro broke the silence. "You know," he said softly, "if this was a movie, this would be the part where the hero finally gets to rest."
Sasha looked at him, a small smile tugging at her lips. "Then good thing we’re not in a movie."
He chuckled. "You sure? You’ve known about the apocalypse. You’ve got the cool car, the magic ring, and the killer attitude."
"Shut up," she said, but she was smiling now.
He leaned his head back, eyes closing. "Wake when the world stops ending."
Sasha watched him for a while—his breathing even, his face peaceful despite the chaos surrounding them. For the first ti since the city fell apart, she allowed herself to relax.
Outside, the world burned. But here, for one fragile mont, there was peace.
Sasha glanced at Alvaro—his chest rising and falling unevenly, breath ragged and shallow. The painkillers were barely holding him together, but he’d live. Barely.
He was still a looker even at the verge of dying.
Sasha was glad that she wasn’t alone at this ti. She was glad that Alvaro was with her.
Though she once dread of living through an apocalypse ga, facing it in real life was an entirely different beast—terrifying, brutal, and far too real.
There were no respawns, no save points, no convenient tutorials telling you what to do when the world started eating itself.
And out here, there was no one to depend on but herself.
At least . . . that’s what she used to think.
Her eyes drifted toward Alvaro, still breathing unevenly beside her. He looked half-dead, yet sohow stubbornly alive—like the universe itself had tried to kill him and failed.
A faint smirk tugged at the corner of her lips.
"Guess I’m not entirely alone after all," she murmured.
It was a strange comfort—having soone there, even if he was wounded, sarcastic, and occasionally infuriating.
The kind of company that made the silence less unbearable and the fear a little easier to ignore.
The apocalypse was terrifying. But loneliness?
That was worse.
She sighed and leaned back. "Congratulations," she muttered under her breath. "You officially qualify as half-dead but still annoying."
Quietly, she tapped the small ring on her finger, and willed inside the dinsional space.
She stepped inside and exhaled. The place was a pocket universe of her own making—rows of neatly stacked supplies, crates of food, dicine, ammo, even a collapsible shower she’d never used because, well, priorities.
"See, this," she said to no one, "is why people like survive the apocalypse. Not strength, not brains—just premium-grade storage space with unlimited snacks."
She grabbed two water bottles and a pack of protein bars that tasted like cardboard mixed with sadness.
When she returned, Alvaro was still asleep, his face pale but peaceful. She placed a bottle beside him, then tore open her own bar with her teeth.
The first bite was awful.
The second was still awful but slightly tolerable.
"Ah, apocalypse cuisine," she muttered, chewing slowly. "Five-star dining if you’ve lost all will to live."
The wind outside howled, carrying faint echoes of distant explosions. Sowhere far beyond the hills, the world was still dying, and here she was—stuck with a wounded man and a mission she barely had a clue on where to start.
She leaned back in her seat, chewing thoughtfully.
She didn’t really have a plan. Not yet.
Her so-called "strategy" was more like a blank whiteboard with existential dread written in tiny letters at the bottom.
The System had sent her here to ensure the villain won.
But what villain? Where?
The world had literally cracked open, monsters were crawling out of people’s basents, and her "target" was probably sipping chaos sowhere in comfort—or already buried under ten tons of rubble.
"If he’s already dead," she reasoned aloud, "then I wouldn’t be here. Which ans he’s alive. Sowhere out there. Probably being dramatic."
She drumd her fingers on the steering wheel. "I hate dramatic people."
A pause.
Then she rembered who she was talking about.
"Okay, maybe I don’t."
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